The franchises of Nintendo have entertained us for years, allowing us to live a large number of unimaginable adventures, which have managed to mark the childhood, adolescence and adulthood of many children. Even so, it is not possible to say that all its IPs are equally recognized, and it is that, with such a wide catalog, and so many years of experience within the sector, it is impossible for any type of video game that you launch on the market to be extremely successful. For this reason, today we are going to talk about a game that belongs to the most important Nintendo franchise, and that managed to revolutionize the market at the time, and yes, we are talking about Super Mario 64.
We are not going to deal with the curiosities of Super Mario 64, nor are we going to talk about how it is still current today, but rather we are going to go to the past, with the aim of unraveling the reasons behind the revolution What was this game like at the time?
These are the reasons why Super Mario 64 was revolutionary
As we have already said, below we will explain the reasons why, in our opinion, Super Mario 64 became one of the most revolutionary video games in history, in addition to continuing to be considered one of the best red plumber games today. . Of course, this is a personal opinionso you can leave us your reasons in the comments, so that we can open a constructive debate.
It came at the best time
Generation changes are difficult for all companies, especially if you are coming from a very successful console, or one that was simply a failure. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Nintendo has had both cases, some of them recent, such as the failure in sales that turned out to be the Wii U, to later rise up to offer us the Nintendo Switch. Even so, you should not stay alone with thisgiven that this was by no means the first failure of Nintendo, being the most notorious, and probably the most resounding, the launch of the Virtual Boy.
You may wonder what this has to do with Super Mario 64, and it is that the console just before the mythical Nintendo 64 were these virtual reality glasses, which ended up being a complete failure for the big N. For this reason, the Japanese company was obliged to launch a good product, which would silence the comments ab out its state of shape, and not only that, but which also had to be supported by a launch catalog to match, at which point Super Mario 64 entered the scene.
A new Mario adventure, but this time leaving aside the classic 2D, to make way for the third dimension, which was already possible with the newly released hardware. Yes, of course this was a marketing issue, since its release date has nothing to do with the game itself, but it was necessary to mention that, in addition to everything that we will mention soon, Nintendo also knew how to launch this title in the perfect moment.
The jump to the third dimension
Today we have it as a standard, since most video games have this view in three dimensions, but at the time it was something that the hardware was not capable of achieving. To change this, the famous Nintendo 64 arrived, and as we have said in the previous section, one of their launch gamesand therefore one of those in charge of teaching how it worked, was Super Mario 64.
At the time, it was feared that everything that made a Mario game stand out as part of that saga would be lost, and that is that we are talking about a rather dizzying change of concept, and that came to overwhelm many users. Even so, to everyone’s delight, they not only managed to maintain the essence of the franchise, but also took it to a new level, also managing to show a large part of what this new technology had to offer, which we would see being exploited to the fullest. again a few years later, with the release of Ocarina of Timealso a very revolutionary game for this console.
You may not agree on many things in this article, but probably we can agree on the fact that the main reason was the change from 2D to 3Dand even so, we cannot say that it was only for that reason, but also that it was done correctly.
Today it may seem outdated in certain things, such as the issue of the camera, but the truth is that it was also a total pioneer, ahead of its time like few others. have managed to do in the history of this industry.
It was quite an adventure
The games in this franchise prior to Super Mario 64 were many things, notably the fact that they were exceptional platformers, but the truth is that they did not stand out as epic adventures. You went through levels from left to right, defeating enemies and jumping non-stop, but the truth is that the base was constant. We’re not complaining, of course, since 2D Mario games are exceptional, and among our favorites, but the game we’re interested in today changed everything forever, at least in the plumber 3d games
We are not going to beat around the bush, and we are referring to the fact that, despite also being very linear, all the levels of this Super Mario 64 felt spacious and explorable, which ended up making each one feel like a new adventure, with dangers and mysteries to discover. Yes, in the previous games there were some mysteries, but it was completely different, since they simply consisted of certain secret areas that were accessed by doing impossible jumps.
Expanded the Mario universe
In the previous Mario games we had already learned a lot about his world, but it was with Super Mario 64 when we could see the greatest variety of enemies, characters and settings concentrated in the same title. This allowed many of us to learn more about this world, making it clear to us that It wasn’t all jumping and moving until you found the princess and defeated Bowserour deadly enemy.
Over time, this was retained in 3D games, but Super Mario 64 was the title that allowed us to know more about the character of Mario and everything that surrounds him. This has never been the most important thing in this franchise, but it is quite appreciated when we know a little more context.
With this we have already told you about why it was so revolutionary. Although if you want a summary, we believe that the main reasons for this consideration is that it came with the release of new hardwareintroduced the third person, managing to do it almost perfectly, because it offered us an incomparable adventure, which we couldn’t even dream of in 2D games, and because it expanded the lore of this franchise.
There are probably many more reasons, and for so many we encourage you to mention them in the comments, but in case you have never played this title, we recommend you do it through the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Packsince it is included with this subscription Nintendo 64 emulationand one of the games available is this Super Mario 64.
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